Friday, June 6, 2014

Stephen Zunes on the Failure of Peace Initiatives

Stephen Zunes is Professor of Politics and Coordinator of Middle East Studies at the University of San Francisco. He's also a Santa Cruzan. His work is thoughtful, probing and important around the U.S.'s role in Middle East politics and peace talks.

"The Obama administration deserves much of the blame for the failure of the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. It had originally been hoped that the United States would
present a binding framework along the lines of what moderate Israeli and
Palestinian political leaders had agreed to in unofficial talks in
Geneva in 2003: Israel would recognize a Palestinian state based roughly
on the pre-1967 borders with mutual territorial swaps, which would
leave the Palestinians with 22 percent of historic Palestine and allow
Israel to keep the remaining 78 percent; the Palestinian state would be
demilitarized and all irregular militias disarmed; illegal settlements
in occupied Palestinian territory near the Israeli border—encompassing
close to 80 percent of the settlers—would be incorporated into Israel
while settlers in the more remote settlements would be required to
return to Israel; there would be no right of return for Palestinian
refugees to Israel, but there would be international assistance in
helping them resettle in the new Palestinian state; and some Israeli
troops would remain along border crossings between the Palestinian state
and its Arab neighbors, eventually to be replaced by international
forces.

The Palestinian government agreed to these terms. Israel
rejected them. Rather than make public this framework, and thereby hope
the Israeli public would pressure its right-wing government to
compromise, the Obama administration instead insisted that “both sides”
had shown a lack of will to compromise.

An interview with an anonymous U.S. official close to the peace talks in an Israeli publication confirmed numerous other reports
that, despite the Obama administration’s claims to the contrary, the
Palestinian side made major concessions while the Israeli side
essentially refused to make any, generally refusing to talk about any
substantive issues.

A host of Democratic and Republican former
officials—including a former national security adviser, secretary of
defense, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, trade
representative, and undersecretary of state for political affairs—went on record
arguing that the Obama administration would have to challenge the
Israeli government’s hard line towards the Palestinians in order for the
peace process to be successful. Unfortunately, the White House
apparently had no interest in doing so.

Instead, Washington has focused on Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas’s refusal to give in to U.S. and Israeli demands
that he recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” While the Palestinian
government, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the ruling Fatah
party have all recognized the state of Israel for more than 20 years,
the Obama administration has effectively moved the goalposts by
declaring that recognizing the Israeli government, acknowledging its
right to exist, and providing security guarantees is not enough,
insisting that the Palestinians explicitly recognize the state of
Israel’s ethno-religious identity as well. No previous administration
has put forward such a requirement. President Carter never made such
demands on Egypt, nor did President Clinton require this of Jordan as a
condition for their peace treaties with Israel. Abbas has said that
Israel can identify itself however it wants, but—given that 20 percent
of the Israeli population is ethnically Palestinian Arab—it would be
politically impossible to agree to something that would acknowledge
second-class status for other Palestinians.

Never in history has any country been required to recognize
the ethnic or religious identity of another state as a condition for
peace. It appears, then, that the Obama administration’s demand may have
been an effort to destroy any chance of a peace agreement and leave an
opening to blame the Palestinians—despite their agreement to virtually
every other issue—for the failure of the peace process.

The failure may also come from President Obama’s trusting Secretary of State John Kerry, a longtime supporter of the Israeli right,
to play such a key role in the peace talks. In 2004, Kerry
unconditionally endorsed an Israeli plan to unilaterally and illegally
annex large areas of the West Bank, leaving the Palestinians with only a
series of small non-contiguous cantons surrounded by Israel as their
“state,” a proposal denounced worldwide as a violation of the UN
Charter, a series of UN Security Council resolutions, and basic
principles of international law. Indeed, Kerry has long insisted that it
was “unrealistic” to demand an Israeli withdrawal from its occupied
territories. (By contrast, Kerry has demanded that Russia withdraw
completely from Crimea, citing the illegality of any country acquiring
“part or all of another state’s territory through coercion or force.”)

Palestinian ReactionRecognizing the failure of the United States to be an honest broker,
the Palestinian government has been seeking to enhance its diplomatic
leverage by redoubling its efforts to be recognized as a full state and
acceding to a series of international conventions. The Obama
administration and Congress have strongly condemned these moves,
insisting that while Israel is free to join various international
conventions addressing human rights and international law (despite the
current right-wing government’s failure to uphold many of its required
obligations), Palestine has no right to join these same conventions. In
early April, Kerry cancelled scheduled peace talks with Abbas in protest
of the Palestinian government’s efforts to join the Geneva and Vienna
Conventions and UN agencies dealing with women’s and children’s rights.

As an indication of just how extreme U.S. Middle East policy
has become, the administration has described Palestine’s efforts to
join these 15 international conventions addressing human rights and
international law as “a threat to Israel.”
In reality, none of conventions impact Israel in any way. The Obama
administration insists that allowing for any application of
international humanitarian law—even Palestinian ratification of human
rights treaties that would help end torture or attacks on civilians by Palestinians—would somehow interfere with the peace negotiations. As Bill van Esveld of Human Rights Watch observed,
“By blocking accountability in the name of advancing the peace process,
the U.S. has facilitated the settlements and other war crimes that are
undermining the prospects for peace.”

The contempt the administration has for human rights could not be
better illustrated than in a recent speech by Martin Indyk, Obama’s
special envoy for Israeli–Palestinian negotiations, in which he
criticized the Palestinian government’s “supposed pursuit of ‘justice’
and their ‘rights,’” in an apparent effort to ridicule the very notion.
The words “justice” and “rights” are in quotation marks in the official transcript, and a video shows him making quote marks with his fingers.

In another move decried by U.S. officials, Fatah and Hamas
announced the formation of a unity government in order to prepare for
elections next year. Though no Hamas officials will serve in any cabinet
posts and President Abbas has reiterated Palestine’s commitment to a
two-state solution and to all previous agreements, State Department
spokeswoman Jen Psaki defended Israel’s decision to suspend the talks by
saying, “It’s hard to see how Israel can be expected to negotiate with a
government that does not believe in its right to exist.”

Ironically, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party still rejects
a two-state solution, and his cabinet includes parties even further to
the right—including HaBayit HaYehudi, or “Jewish Home,” which
essentially mirrors Hamas in rejecting previous disengagement
agreements, refusing to accept Palestine’s right to exist, and
supporting attacks against Palestinian civilians. However, the Obama
administration apparently believes that while anti-Israel extremism in
unacceptable, anti-Palestinian extremism can be tolerated.

Meanwhile, a broad bipartisan effort is growing in the
Congress to blame the failure of the peace talks exclusively on the
Palestinians and to force the administration to cut all ties with the
Palestine Authority.

Unless and until the Obama administration decides to end its
support for the Israeli right and support Israeli and Palestinian
moderates, there will be no hope for peace."

TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES

I've been thinking a lot about Moses this summer, and this bit about burning bushes, and taking off our shoes, and standing on holy ground. Moses was about to be tasked with an enormous responsibility: speaking truth to power, confronting the titans of industry, demanding that Pharaoh let the oppressed go free. But before he could even begin to entertain that call, he had to see what was going on in an ordinary desert shrub. He had to grasp the holiness and wonder and beauty of soil--dust--hillside--wilderness. This strikes me as so, so important for us: that we learn to swoon before creation, to praise the glory and namelessness of the holy, to take off our shoes and love it all. Only then, I think, are we able to contemplate the radically liberating call and the daring project of justice and liberation.

DAVE GRISHAW-JONES

WELCOME to VALLEY RISE UP: a blog exploring faith and wonder, ethics and passion. If you find something helpful here, anything helpful here, I hope you'll take it along and make it work for you. I live and work in Santa Cruz, California, where I'm a pastor and teacher at Peace United Church of Christ. My ministry is fluid and complex: creating spaces for conversation, leading a congregation in worship and prayer, actively pursuing justice in the community and world around me. More than anything else, I see myself as a spiritual guide and mentor for seekers and believers. In a beautiful and befuddling world, faith offers courage, resilience and tenderness. On the side, I love to read and write poetry, and I've written a number of hymns and songs as well. In VALLEY RISE UP, I try to keep the conversation alive, exploring grace, peacemaking, human yearning and hope.

Swords pounded into ploughsharesBombs into bread and wineSwords pounded into ploughsharesBombs into bread and wineSwords pounded into ploughsharesBombs into bread and wineGlobal feast, blessed peace, by & by!

PEACE--SALAAM--SHALOM!

CENTRAL COAST VOICES

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CORE PRACTICE: PRAYER

"If the inner life is great," said Meister Eckhart 800 years ago, "the outer life will never be puny." Eckhart and others talk about two dimensions in prayer: the horizontal (connecting us in lovingkindness to others) and the vertical (uniting us in love with the Source of all that is and will be). The two intersect in stillness, in reflection, in meditation, in prayer. And this kind of practice is cultivated, tended like a garden, through daily experience and circles of support. There are so many ways into a practice of prayer. For some of us, silence is the key; for others, it's movement, yoga, tai chi, qi gong. The key seems to be discipline, and steady practice. It's a wild and noisy world out there, so find a place and time to step aside and pray. And do it often.

PRAYER, STILLNESS, CONNECTION

PRAY!

THOMAS MERTON'S PRAYER

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

CORE PRACTICE: AGAPE

Agape is a very particular kind of love, reflected in the stories of Jesus, refracted through his life, his sacrifice, his passion for communion and justice. I like to link agape (a Greek word found in the Christian scriptures) with ahimsa or nonviolence. Like Jesus, Gandhi practiced a rigorous and expansive kind of love. His ahimsa (a Sanskrit word) permeated relationships, family responsibilities, public commitments and his many projects for the betterment and liberation of his people. Like ahimsa, agape has something to do with seeing the other for the unique and precious being she is, without insisting on her conformity or conversion. It involves us in seeking the greatest good, the deepest joy for her. Simply because she is. And like prayer, agape draws energy and staying power from joy, worship, study and friendship.

CHRIST AMONG THE LILIES

By Stanley Spencer

CORE PRACTICE: COMMUNION

When the church remembers Jesus’ passion and reenacts his gracious sacrifice, it invites transformation in each of us. From self-centered living to neighborly love. From narrow-minded concern to cosmic generosity. From numbness to mindfulness. At the table we practice mindfulness, forgiveness and incarnation. The word becomes flesh in us. And we return once again to the image of God. In the beautiful feast of life.

Of course, transformation is also taking place within ‘communing’ communities. Communion calls forth hospitality and courage. Ana María Pineda writes of the early Jesus movement: “The early church, which met in houses, grew up turning hosts into guests and guests into hosts.” More than simple charity, this ongoing practice of hospitality is transformative. When strangers are truly welcomed, a new community emerges, surprising gifts are received; at some point, guests become hosts. Like communion, hospitality isn’t a transaction through which service is rendered and compensation offered. It’s an act of faith whereby relationships are honored, prayers are shared and deep needs are met.

CORE PRACTICE: FORGIVENESS

These are words written by Rowan Williams, once the Archbishop of Canterbury: "So to live a ‘forgiven’ life is not simply to live in a happy consciousness of having been absolved. Forgiveness is precisely the deep and abiding sense of what relation—with God or with other human beings—can and should be; and so it is itself a stimulus, an irritant, necessarily provoking protest at impoverished versions of social and personal relations." Gospel love is so much more than sentiment, so much more than a Hallmark card. It’s a relentless call to reconciliation and peace, even an “irritant” at times. If you’re so much as angry with a sister or brother, if your heart grieves a broken relationship of any kind, there’s work to be done. The kingdom is restless. What God desires is the kind of worship that provokes forgiveness, reconciliation, community. Before you offer that gift at the altar, do a little inventory. Which of your relationships are strained? Is there envy or resentment between you? Has hurt been done? “First be reconciled to your brother or sister,” and consider reconciliation the greatest gift you can offer at the altar of love.